The Illinois Pollution Control Board recently issued its Environmental Register for August 2014. The Environmental Register features a letter from Board Chairman Deanna Glosser, which summarizes the activity that the Board has conducted in rulemaking dockets, including amendments adopted that make the Board's rules consistent with, and as stringent as, the current federal regulations regarding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.
The Environmental Register also contains an appellate update, a rulemaking update, a summary of actions of the Board, a summary of new cases, and the Board’s calendar.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resourcesrecently announced prosecutions against three out-of-state businesses for alleged violations of Illinois laws governing the importation of fish species that can become invasive, or can potentially spread Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS). Investigations by the Illinois Conservation Police have resulted in fines of nearly $30,000, with the potential for additional fines as the remaining case is adjudicated. Here's the description of the alleged violations from the Illinois DNR:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently published final regulations to establish requirements for cooling water intake structures at existing facilities. According to the EPA, "cooling water is withdrawn for the purpose of dissipating waste heat from industrial processes. Over half of all water withdrawn in the United States each year is for cooling purposes. By far, the largest industrial use of cooling water is for thermoelectric generation, but cooling water is also used in the manufacture of aluminum, chemicals and allied products, food and kindred products, pulp and paper, refined petroleum products, and steel, as well as in other industries." EPA identified several potential problems with cooling water withdrawals, including impingment and entrainment:

As Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Environmental Law Committee, I invite you to join us for our next meeting, which will be held on September 2, 2014 from 12:15 pm to 1:30 pm at the Chicago Bar Association. The speaker will be Kristen Laughridge Gale from Nijman Franzetti, LLP, and the topic will be “Recent Developments in Illinois Environmental Legislation”. Attorneys of all ages/experience and law students are encouraged to attend.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently approved changes to the vehicle inspection and maintenance program of the State of Illinois. These changes were proposed by the Illinois EPA as revisions to the State Implementation Plan, which details how Illinois will comply with the Clean Air Act and its implementing regulations.

My law firm, Peckar & Abramson, P.C., recently issued a press release congratulating me on being elected to the Chicago Bar Association Board of Managers:
PECKAR & ABRAMSON, P.C.’S DAVID J. SCRIVEN-YOUNG ELECTED TO CHICAGO BAR ASSOCIATION BOARD OF MANAGERS
NEW YORK—July 17, 2014 – Peckar & Abramson, P.C. (P&A) is pleased to announce that David J. Scriven-Young, Senior Associate in the firm’s Chicago office, has been elected to serve on the Chicago Bar Association (CBA) Board of Managers. Mr. Scriven-Young will serve a two-year term as one of 24 CBA board members.
Leading the CBA with Chicago’s Legal Elite
Mr. Scriven-Young was sworn in to the CBA Board of Managers on Thursday, June 26, 2014. He will help lead the association and contribute to the development of its ongoing policies and programming as well as the management of its operating budget.The CBA Board of Managers consists of 24 total members of Chicago’s legal elite, including a federal district court judge, two judges from the Circuit Court of Cook County and several general counsels from both non-profit and for-profit companies. The Board includes 16 members elected by the membership and 6 officers including the President, First Vice-President, Second Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and Immediate Past President. Mr. Scriven-Young joins seven other new managers on the 2014-2015 CBA board.

On July 23, 2014, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced that he signed legislation designed to help combat flooding across the state and to protect Illinois’ drinking water. The legislation makes stormwater management and treatment projects available for state financial assistance following last year’s record rainfall and severe flooding that affected communities across Illinois. A copy of the new law can be found here.
More specifically, the new law amends the Environmental Protection Act to allow the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to use funds in the Water Pollution Control Loan Program to provide financial assistance for eligible projects, including those that encourage green infrastructure, that manage and treat stormwater, and that maintain and restore natural hydrology by infiltrating, evapotranspiring, and capturing and using stormwater. The new law also provides that, in planning projects for which financing will be sought from the Water Pollution Control Loan Program, municipalities should consider such things as: a project’s lifetime costs; the availability of long-term funding for the construction, operation, maintenance, and replacement of the project; the resilience of the projects to the effects of climate change; the project’s ability to increase water efficiency; the capacity of a project to restore natural hydrology or to preserve or restore landscape features; the cost-effectiveness of the project; and the overall environmental innovativeness of the project. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has been given the authority to adopt rules stating criteria for the prioritization of the issuance of the loans. Such rules would include criteria designed to encourage green infrastructure, water efficiency, environmentally innovative projects, and nutrient pollution removal.

Illinois environmentalists are cheering the spectacular success of the movement to ban fracking in New York. The victory is justifiably spurring reflection on how it was done. What happened in New York that Illinois environmentalists can learn from?...

EPA is releasing an assessment of people's risks from the pesticide chlorpyrifos for public comment. The assessment updates the June 2011 preliminary human health risk assessment based on new information including public comments. EPA factored in exposures from multiple sources and considered all po…

Editor’s Note: This article is one submission in a live Masdar blogging contest (find out the entry requirements here). Very simply, the focus of the contest submissions is to: “Describe your city in 2030: what will occur due to changes in energy, transportation and water technologies, and how will…

Attorney advertising. The attorney responsible for this site is David J. Scriven-Young, Peckar & Abramson, P.C., 30 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 4126, Chicago, Illinois 60602. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Peckar & Abramson